Worktop templating in St Johns

Yes. St Johns is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are SE8, SE4. It is worked on our south east London run, along with the rest of Lewisham. A controlled parking zone means either a visitor permit sorted in advance or a suspended bay, and a suspension is applied for days ahead rather than on the morning. The templating visit needs somewhere to stop for two or three hours, which is a different problem from unloading for twenty minutes. It goes on the job sheet for the fitting crew. We template in your kitchen and fit in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

The back addition is a narrow two-storey outrigger with a single external wall, and the kitchen galley runs the length of it. Alcoves either side of the breast are rarely the same width and rarely parallel, so each one is templated as its own piece with its own scribe. No stone is ever cut from a plan. Narrow plots mean side returns rarely happen, most of the work here is making a 2.4m galley work harder.

Railway viaducts and changes of level carve the area into pockets with few through routes, and parking is permit-controlled; short carries, awkward navigation. Everything comes through the front door and down the hall, so the tightest point on the route is usually the newel post at the foot of the stairs. The templater measures that route on the same visit, so the drawing leaves site already knowing the maximum piece. It goes on the drawing with the run dimensions.

It is one of the three we do most here, behind worktop replacement. Same template visit, same workshop, same installers either way. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. Two to three hours on site, with the sink, tap and hob physically present. Units fitted, fixed and level first. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. No stone is ever cut from a plan, which is inconvenient exactly when a programme is tight. The room as it is, not as it was drawn.

The step or level change between the original room and the return is real, and the units need packing before stone goes across it. A layout templated off one wall instead of one datum will not sit right once all the pieces are down together. One datum for the whole room. Material is £110-£550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines.

The stone carries the scribe because the wall cannot be persuaded, so back edges are cut oversize and eased in rather than dropped straight down. The template plots it as it is, at the exact height the worktop will sit, and the drawing carries that through. Measured at worktop height, nowhere else. Units fixed and packed level over the sloping floor, walls replastered and dry at their final thickness (tiling and splashbacks go on after the worktop, never before), and the sink, tap and hob physically on site, with a Belfast sink built in and set at its finished height. The same building type can arrive as a careful one-off kitchen or as a fast turnaround, and the honest answer is that they are priced differently. The template happens when the units are in, fixed and level, whoever is fitting them. Fitted, fixed and level, then we come.